A Scent of Japan

Walking down the empty streets while breathing in the humid air, your skin feels like covered by a film of moist damp steam with a slight scent of ash. It reaches under your skin, this familiar feeling of asian streets as I know it from my distant childhood memories of Indonesia, but without being particular at all. It is early in the morning, the airport city has not rised to its reputation of crowded streets, as there is barely any soul passsing by. It feels tranquil, whether this is the emptiness or always the case will show, soon.

I arrive at the Temple, struck by this monumental building. It turns out to be the entrance only and with every further step my eyes meet new corners, edges, curves; shaping into those beautiful roofs of a spectrum of colours that are contrasting with golden ornaments. As you shift your focus while walking every step reveals one temple roof overlapping the next, placing you with a feeling of (in)significance. The impressions I witness leave a mark and set me back in time, to a mindset when every little detail was able to strike you with fascination; it felt as if watching the character of my younger self wandering through an ancient place.